As I’ve written before, admirers of the great American Quartets of the
1930s-1950s period will spring to attention when they hear the name Stuyvesant.
Yes, others were as prominent if not more so - the Coolidge, the Gordon, Curtis,
Musical Arts, Paganini, the transplanted Guilet and London, the Stradivarius
and plenty of others - but the Stuyvesant always sought out creative and imaginative
repertoire and their changing personnel were some of the very best around.
At one time the composition of the quartet was Sylvan Shulman and Bernard
Robbins, violins, Ralph Hersh, viola and Alan Shulman, cello, but for these
1939-41 inscriptions the line up included both Shulmans and violist Louis
Kievman; the second violin was Harry Glickman for the Shostakovich and Zelly
Smirnoff for the Bloch.

The American recording industry made headway early with Shostakovich. Stokowski
and Rodzinski were leading exponents of some of the symphonies - of the two
Stokowski was the more committed - and there was also activity in the chamber
repertoire. This was particularly true in the case of the Piano Quintet where
Vivian Rivkin and the Stuyvesant Quartet recorded the work the year after
it had been completed. The Quartet also notched up the First Quartet in its
premiere Western recording.

Fine string tone and a first class rapport with Rivkin mark out this 1941
performance. This aggregation, after all, gave the work its American premiere.
The soliloquies are full of character, and often moving, the fugal section
chiselled and knowing. Expressive unanimity is a hallmark, whilst as for Rivkin,
he certainly captures the brittle Shostakovich piano sound, sounding uncannily
like a xylophone in the latter stages of the Quintet. The tolling motif in
the Scherzo is well calibrated, so too the foreshadowing of the later Second
Piano Concerto. Full marks too for the engineering team capturing a good range
of dynamics. A few clicks hardly bar pleasure at this finely recorded artefact
that’s been well transferred to silver disc. It bears an important place
in the discography of the work. The composer himself of course left behind
a recording with the Beethoven Quartet.

The companion work was recorded earlier, and is Bloch’s magisterial,
expansive and intense First Quartet. If your historical knowledge of this
work is predicated on the Griller recording for Decca in 1954, then you will
be in for something of a shock. The Stuyvesant is much faster and its tautness
doesn’t come with any loss of intensity. It’s a genuinely valuable
difference of approach. The Stuyvesant, recorded c.1939, conveys plenty of
the nervous vitality inherent in the music. Rhythms remain flexible, the promotion
of colour is laudable, and there is overall singing buoyancy to its approach.
Additionally the recording was good, and the transfer - with imperceptible
side joins - equally so.

I can strongly recommend the following two other Stuyvesant discs - Hindemith,
Villa-Lobos and Quincy Porter quartets on Parnassus
PACD 96026 and Bridge 9137 which contains Malipiero No.1, the Debussy
and Ravel, and a work - with Benny Goodman - by Alan Shulman.

As for the recording under review, Historic Recordings doesn’t provide
any notes but has hit the spot with this release.

Jonathan Woolf

Fine string tone and first class rapport, full of character and often moving.